Title: David T. Howard Middle School
Location of Proejct: Atlanta, Georgia
Project Completion Date: September 2020
Firm Name: SSOE | Stevens & Wilkinson and Lord Aeck Sargent

Short Description: The David T. Howard Middle School is a rehabilitation of an existing 1924 historic classroom building and an addition of new classrooms, auditorium, cafeteria, and administration suite.
Located near the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, the character of the historic school was maintained by rehabilitating the exterior brick skin and using the existing school layout for classroom space.

The addition includes larger program elements and additional classrooms and connects the wings of the historic building with a four-story glass bridge. A front addition was built to mimic the unbuilt original design to serve as the school’s main entrance.

Architect's Statement: The David T. Howard Grammar School, opened in 1924 by the City of Atlanta for African-American children on land that was donated by former slave David T. Howard, was attended by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, presidential advisor Vernon Jordan, NBA star Walt Frazier, and other local leaders.

The primary challenge of this project was transforming an abandoned, historic school into a modern education facility while honoring the past. The innovative design drivers to solve this challenge were preserving /rehabilitating the existing buildings, designing a front addition based upon an unrealized, original design, and designing modern additions to create a cohesive project.
The preservation of the existing building included repairs to the brick façades and interior materials and replacement of exterior windows. Classrooms are renovated throughout the building including strategically restoring one classroom as a display example of how the original space was used.

The project site was knit back into the neighborhood fabric with five new pedestrian/bike “trailheads” to adjacent BeltLine Eastside and Freedom Park trails. These connections along with on-site parking for over 100 bikes maximize alternative mobility options and reduce the number of buses needed to serve the school.

A defining site intervention included a new east-west “street” through the block, allowing for off-street bus queuing to the south of the school. The new street also breaks down the scale of the large block, creates porosity to peripheral neighborhood streets, and pays homage to a 1920s-era street that existed through the site in roughly the same location.

The addition on the front of the building realizes the original intent for the project. Working from the original rendering, the design marks the new front entry to the building and creates a critical linkage to the existing building corridor and new media center. Subtle use of brick patterning/color, and modern windows/materials delineate a connection to the original building as well as convey it as a new addition.

The building additions also includes additional core and science classrooms and larger program elements such as music classrooms, auditorium, and kitchen/cafeteria. This element wraps the west and south façades of the existing building, joining it with circulation elements that connect all building areas and keeps the brick of the historic building visible.

The single-story music classrooms and auditorium are located on the first level along the west side of the existing building. The height of this block is minimized at the front of the existing building by being partly below grade. The spaces are then pulled away from the existing building western façade to create a larger circulation and pre-function space for the auditorium.

The kitchen/cafeteria is on the first level where the four-story block turns the corner of the L-shape. The kitchen/cafeteria floor plate is lowered two feet to provide greater height in the cafeteria. The cafeteria overlooks an existing playfield to the south and is adjacent to the bus lanes. Three levels of core and science classrooms are stacked above the cafeteria corresponding to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade levels of the existing building, with a single loaded corridor that extends past the block of classrooms to form a glass bridge connecting to the west wing of the existing building. The entire four-story block is slightly angled away from the existing building to allow the glass bridge to connect to a circulation node at the rear of the gymnasium building.

The media center is designed as the heart of the facility, placed in the existing courtyard and lifted above the courtyard ground plane to the second level. The media center is visible and accessible from all parts of the school and is wrapped in yellow-painted cladding to enhance the visibility of the structure.

The modern additions to the project complement the original building and integrates a cohesive campus with modern education spaces. These new building elements build upon the original building’s clarity of form and function. Each new building form represents its unique function, from the heart of the school, the iconic media center, to the essential glass bridge providing connection between new and existing, as well as a visual connection to its context.

The four-story original building contains classroom space, with the room layout reflecting the original layout as much as possible. Second, third, and fourth floors house core classrooms. The original corridor walls are kept, and as many classroom demising walls as possible are maintained.

The existing gymnasium built in 1942 was also renovated and remains a gymnasium and assembly space. Original steel windows were refurbished, wood floors were replaced, and the original wood benches restored. Existing locker rooms were redesigned to provide modern locker facilities. A new two-story corridor at the rear of the building connects to the new glass bridge circulation system for access to the classroom portions of the building.